Books, Cake and Sunshine

This week we have been working on a big batch of these letterpressed notebooks to take to Big Blue Sky in Wells next the Sea.


They will also be available in our Folksy and Etsy shops soon!


We have also been enjoying the fine weather which means we can have breakfast, lunch and dinner in the garden, which is looking nice and tidy at the moment with some new hanging baskets.

Tomorrow we're off to the coast, via Holt to pick up Jon's new jacket from Old Town. Fingers crossed that it stays sunny long enough for us to dip our toes in the North Sea!

We'll be having a big wodge of this coffee and ginger cake on our picnic - it's fast becoming a favourite recipe, which you can find here.

The John Jarrold Printing Museum

Today was the last day of this year's Heritage Open Days, so this afternoon we dashed into town to visit the John Jarrold Printing Museum, a magical wonder-world of presses and ink and bookbinding and lithography and type...


We had a lovely afternoon peeping into type cases and chatting to the volunteers who run the museum, and who are very enthusiastic and keen to share their tips with novices like us!

They had a nice little Heidelberg press up and running (above) - they don't turn the huge ones on for big public open days (health and safety), but one of the volunteers said that they do run them during the museum's normal opening hours (Wednesday mornings).

There are some more photos in our Flickr photostream.

Do go if you ever get the chance, it's a lovely little place, and packed to the gunwales with presses and type and cameras and litho stones and guillotines and loads of other interesting bits and bobs.

Spring time...

This weekend Jon has been busy printing another little letterpress print on the Adana. This one has a nice old block from an advert or catalogue with some rings (priced in shillings, so it must be old....).

The quote is most famous for being in 'As You Like It', although the song probably predates Shakespeare (click on the picture to enlarge it if you need to).

Although this print is all about the joys of spring, it's definitely feeling autumnal here, the first conkers have fallen off the horse chestnut, the nights are drawing in and we've been foraging in the hedgerows. In our part of Norfolk the elderberries are ready, but the sloes aren't quite there yet - another week and we'll have to return to our top-secret favourite sloe picking hedgerow...

Weddings and Tigers

A new letterpress print about weddings and tigers -

Printed on the Adana using our nice old wedding block and some Bodoni italic.

This one is in our Etsy and Folksy shops now...

We didn't dress up as tigers the day after our own wedding (or go to the seaside), although I suspect it would have been more fun if we had!

We're looking forward to the bank holiday weekend so we can both make a start on some new prints, and start planning a new and exciting project - more news soon!

Munro Cautley (and some other new things)

Many apologies for almost a month long blog absence! Where do the weeks go? Life at SpoonerGregory Acres has been extremely busy for the past few weeks, but hopefully we can start to relax again now and post more regularly!

Since we last posted we've acquired a big, cool new block to add to the collection (thanks again Alan!). This one is for the cover of a book (well known in these parts) - Norfolk Churches by Munro Cautley, originally published in 1949 with a watercolour by Albert Ribbans on the front cover.
Cautley was also an architect, and there's a Flickr group devoted to his work.

Here's a print taken from the block -

The church is St Peter's in Ringland, not far from Norwich, so of course we had to go on an expedition (complete with the block in our rucksack....)

The tree in Ribban's watercolour has gone, but here's the church from almost the same place.

You can find out more about the church on Simon Knott's Norfolk Churches website, always our first port of call for Norfolk church related things.

Now we just have to get our hands on a copy of the book!

In other news...

I have finally finished sewing together the pile of little notebooks that I started a while ago. Sets of five notebooks are listed in our Folksy shop at the moment.

Our Folksy shop was in serious need of restocking, and this afternoon is the first chance I've had to sit down with a cup of tea and do it, although there's still more to list.

Jon is busy working on a new engraving, which should be finished by the weekend.

And finally - on my way to the Post Office with some orders this morning I couldn't help but notice this dandy Hornsea storage jar in the local charity shop, so naturally it came home with me and is adjusting to life on our mantlepiece rather than at the back of a dusty shelf.

New projects

Last weekend was the final weekend of Norfolk Open Studios - thanks to everyone who came along this weekend. We have really enjoyed the experience, and we've met so many lovely people!

We both started new projects over the weekend. Jon engraved a small block with a close-up of a poppy head in a walled garden -

We are going to print it one evening this week.

I letterpressed lots and lots of little coloured covers with some of our nice vintage blocks for sets of small notebooks. I've been sewing the notebooks together inbetween other jobs - very therapeutic.


This week we've been enjoying cherries and peonies (and these strange pink spiky flowers) from the market in Norwich. The cherries didn't last very long...


Just nudging into the corner of the photo of the flowers is our new little raku pebble by Norwich ceramicist Lucy Edwards. It just fits in the palm of my hand, and is lovely and tactile, and such pretty colours!
Also, thanks to everyone for taking part in our survey. We've had loads of responses, and I'm going to pick the winner of the giveaway later this evening :)

Sunny days

We have been enjoying some beautiful sunshine for the last few days - the garden is bursting with greenery! It's lovely to sit outside and have morning coffee, rather than staying indoors.

The lilac in the garden has bloomed, and smells wonderful. Tomorrow I'm going to pick some for the house. Well, actually Jon will pick them since it requires the use of a step ladder (I am not to be trusted...).

The postman has had some lovely things for us over the past couple of days -

Some pretty type from Devon (more to follow too - hooray!)...

And a box full of leather offcuts for bookmaking from the Midlands - lots of black, as well as dark brown, tan, cherry red, dark green and a nice foresty green, and navy blue! We're looking forward to making some new journals with it all over the next couple of weeks. Although the leather will probably be enough to keep us going for several months!

We've also been busy printing reduction lino cuts - they should be finished by tomorrow afternoon, so we'll post about them once they are finished.

In the meantime have a look at our Etsy treasury here. Jon's ordered his gown for graduation this week - he gets to wear a bonnet, no less.

Enjoy the sunshine!

Getting rid of the TV

We often get really fed up with the TV in the evenings and turn to a good book instead - hence Jon's new letterpress print -

Let's sell it and spend the money on books.

There are copies in our Folksy and Etsy shops now, as well as some newly listed hand bound journals too.

Today we're really pleased to be featured on Sam's Inklore blog (one of our favourites). Sam is another printmaker who makes the most wonderful block printed fabrics for the home. I especially love the 'no tie' hydrangea apron in her Etsy shop.

New stuff

A short post this evening - we've had a busy few days, and a tad too much ginger wine... But I think it's safe to say that we'll have plenty of handmade goodies on our stalls at Clutter City tomorrow, and H@ndmade Cambridge next weekend!

New hand bound books -
New letterpressed cards -
And some new prints too. Hooray!

Busy, busy!

We have had a busy old week - engraving, printing and organising mostly. And a spot of letterpress too. Remember the Pemberley notecards we printed ages ago? I always meant to make them into a series, so here is the next one - a nice quote from Northanger Abbey with a vintage block.

'A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing
anything at all, should conceal it as well as she can.'

We're hoping to perhaps print these tonight so the ink will have plenty of time to dry before the weekend, then tomorrow we have Jon's new engraving to print.

Otherwise, we have been busy working! Here I am attempting to teach some students something useful at Wimpole Hall yesterday - they all seemed to enjoy themselves despite the downpours.

More books (and some bookplates too)

This weekend we are busy getting ready for the next Clutter City and H@ndmade Cambridge - Jon is working on a new engraving, and I've been letterpressing plenty of cards and notelets.


We've printed a batch of Penguin bookplates, and letterpressed 'Ex Libris' in black oil ink on the Adana.

We popped out into Norwich yesterday to buy some leather offcuts from Norwich Art Supplies and Anglian Fashion Fabrics to make some more hand stitched books... We picked up lots of lovely brown leather, and a really gorgeous piece of soft grey suede.

We've got plenty more to keep us busy over the next couple of weeks, including new prints!

Rollers!

Today I got home from work with a dreadful headache and decided to cheer myself up with a nice spot of printing - our back room was full of late afternoon sunshine and an hour or so with a cup of tea in the company of the Adana seemed like a bright idea...

We've had a few weeks almost completely away from printing of any kind, so today was the first time I'd tried out the new rollers that Jon bought me for Christmas, as well as the sweet perpetual calender I got from ebay a couple of weeks ago (2010 calenders here we come!)

If you look carefully you might spot my mistake - if only I'd noticed at this point!

Here is the Adana with some purple ink splodged all over the ink disc -

And with the ink covering the disc -

The rollers are excellent, and make everything much easier than hand inking - although I did manage to get purple ink all over myself because I kept brushing the ink disc. The rollers also make a very satisfying pattern - hard to get in a photo though.

Here is the finished month - completely and totally backwards - Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. Argh! Oh well, that'll teach me to try and do it when I'm distracted about other things instead. Fortunately printing is so therapeutic that my headache was cured enough not to mind (much).
Ah well, I shall go and find solace in a home-made egg custard tart and ponder what kind of engravings I can make Jon do to go with my calender months...

Yet more lovely daffodils, in a bargainous vase from the Habitat sale.

Happy New Year!

We are starting 2009 with lots of ideas about using our Adana prompted by the arrival of these little beauties from Father Christmas....

Rollers!! No more careful hand inking for us! The Adana needs a bit of TLC - the springs for the rollers are a bit stiff from lack of use but hopefully we shall soon be printing with proper rollers and using the ink disc for the very first time. Hurrah!

We are also looking forward to the eventual arrival of the Model press - it might be a few months yet though, because the rollers need recovering and we have to find a home for it here (we need to do a bit of spring cleaning and chucking out first...)

Here is an advert for the Model in a copy of 'British Printer' from the summer of 1902...

The magazine came with the press, and has some beautiful adverts! The other page just visible in this shot is the 'situations vacant' page with various adverts. My favourite is this one -

'Engraver wanted for Artistic American and View work; must be competent man and able to make his own sketches; exceptional opportunity for first class man.'

What about a competent woman?! Although I'm not sure you could call my engraving competent - perhaps Jon could have applied instead of me...

When we were doing the history of our house (built in 1894), we looked up the 1901 census to discover that the occupants were involved in printing and bookbinding too! Here's an extract from the census - click on the image to see it properly.

Harry Webster (aged 19) was a bookbinder, Lionel (aged 18) was an assistant compositor and Grace (aged 16) was a book sewer. We haven't been able to find out anything more about them, but it's quite nice to think that we have our press and type all set out in what was probably their bedroom.

Quite how six people managed in our tiny house I'm not quite sure - sometimes there barely seems room for the two of us!

Anyway, here's some nice decorative type that came with the Model press in a sweet little wooden box. We haven't used it yet - but we're looking forward to testing it out with those new rollers!

A giveaway!

Today is the 2nd anniversary of 'For What is Chatteris?', which we started all the way back in December 2006.

You can read our very first post here.

To celebrate we are giving away a veritable smorgasbord of printed goodies!

To win, simply leave a comment on this post before midnight (GMT) on Tuesday 16th December - a week from now.

What you can win -

A Tulips linocut
Our little Edgefield wood engraving
A pretty paper flower brooch
A letterpress notebook
A handmade concertina notebook (like this one)
Letterpress Memorandum cards
Letterpress Note! cards
Some tiny letterpress TV cards
Hand printed holly decorations (I forgot to put those in the photo though - oops!)

More than £40 worth of hand printed stuff - all for free!

Here's to another year (or two) of blogging!

T&C
The winner will be chosen at random from the comments on Wednesday 17th December using an online random number generator.
All entries welcome - we will post to anywhere in the world (might not arrive before Christmas though...)

Memorandum

We usually write notes to each other on bits of scrap paper, but we recently picked up this lovely little 'memorandum' block - the perfect excuse to letterpress some nice cards to write lists and notes on!

Although only special notes - they're too nice for something like 'Jon - remember to put the wheelie bin out!'.
On Sunday we printed loads in pretty blue, purple, a lovely sagey-green and our old favourite, hot pink! Tonight I'm going to sit and package them up ready to take to Clutter City on Saturday - the days seem to be slipping away and I still have a list of things that need to be done before then...

Right, we had better think about making a start on our tea - pumpkin tagine tonight!